


it’ll always be you and me

by jjokkiri



Category: UP10TION
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Feelings Realization, I Have A Best Friends Sunshin Agenda, Jinhyuk Is His (Former) Manager, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Wooseok Is Famous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22840456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: When he was upset, Wooseok turned self-destructive. And most often, Wooseok doused his mind with alcohol. It wasn’t a secret that only Lee Jinhyuk could drag him back from the spiral he constantly threw himself into. Jinhyuk was his grounding force.But Jinhyuk wasn’t there with them.
Relationships: Kim Wooseok | Wooshin/Lee Jinhyuk, Lee Changhyun | Bit-to/Seon Yein | Sunyoul
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	it’ll always be you and me

“Call Jinhyuk.”

The tone of Seon Yein’s voice was decisive and firm. It was an order. His words didn’t leave any room for argument. He was firm in his decision. It was rare that Yein spoke with such a harsh edge to his voice.

They swore that they wouldn’t resort to any unreasonable, drastic measures to get Wooseok out of his bedroom but several hours of sulking turned into days. It had been three days since Yein saw Wooseok’s face and he was worried sick for his best friend. The singer hadn’t left his room and, while it was certain that he couldn’t possibly die from being left alone in his room for a few days, Yein was horrified of every other possibility surrounding Wooseok’s well-being.

When he was upset, Wooseok turned self-destructive. Wooseok was reckless and he was unpredictable. He was an uncontrollable storm when his emotions got the best of him.

It was hard to constantly be in the spotlight, the prying eyes of the public, and Wooseok broke down under the harsh criticism. He shouldered all the pain by himself until he broke down, away from the public eye. He found the worst methods of shoving the emotions away from himself instead of facing them.

Most often, Wooseok doused his mind with alcohol.

And over the past years of knowing him, managing him, only Lee Jinhyuk could drag him back from the spiral he constantly threw himself into. Jinhyuk was his grounding force. But Jinhyuk wasn’t there with them.

Yein stood by the door of Wooseok’s bedroom with his hands clutching the doorknob, frantically shaking the metal knob in an attempt to open the door. Following the announcement that Jinhyuk had resigned from his position as Wooseok’s manager, Wooseok had locked himself up in his bedroom and the concern for the singer had heightened beyond a point where they couldn’t just accept that Wooseok wasn’t coming out.

Begging Wooseok to open the door wasn’t working. He ignored everything they yelled through the door. And Yein couldn’t leave him alone. Yein couldn’t just let his best friend rot away in his bedroom, surrounded with alcohol and nothing else. He couldn’t let his best friend stay alone when he was in emotional turmoil.

_Three days was too long._

Changhyun hovered by Yein’s side with a concerned look in his eyes.

“Call Jinhyuk,” Yein repeated himself.

Changhyun gritted his teeth, tense and anxious. He looked at the closed door of Wooseok’s room.

“But Jinhyuk isn’t even in the city, Yein,” he reminded him, quietly. They spoke quietly so their voices wouldn’t carry through the door and reach Wooseok’s ears. Changhyun frowned at the blond boy standing next to him, “He already told us that he was going to be travelling following his resigning. He’s not even Wooseok’s manager anymore, we can’t just call him on his personal time.”

 _“I don’t care!”_ Yein pushed at the doorknob desperately trying to open the door. It rattled with the sheer force of his strength but didn’t budge otherwise. He turned to look at Changhyun with wide, desperate eyes; he looked at him on the verge of tears. His voice softened, the broken sound of his voice devastatingly heart shattering, “I don’t care where he is. Call Jinhyuk, Changhyun. _Please._ ”

Changhyun hesitated, his hand hovering just over the cellphone in his pocket.

Noticing Changhyun’s hesitation, Yein let go of the doorknob and reached for Changhyun’s hands. He clasped his hands around the other man’s hands and peered up at him, unshed tears making his eyes glitter in the light. His knuckles turned white from the grip he had on Changhyun’s hands. Changhyun took a shaky breath.

“Changhyun, _please_ ,” Yein practically begged him. His voice trembled, “You’re his friend. You have his personal number and you can call him. Wooseok is _my_ friend and I want him to be okay. Jinhyuk is the only goddamn person who can get him out of that room. He _needs_ to see him.”

Numbly, Changhyun nodded his head.

“Okay,” he whispered. He reached a hand to wipe a tear from Yein’s cheek with his thumb. Changhyun exhaled a deep, shaky breath, “Please, don’t cry. I’ll call him for you.”

* * *

(“He won’t come out of his room and he won’t open the door for anyone.” Yein’s sniffling.

An exhausted sigh. “We’re all worried sick, Jinhyuk.”

“We don’t know what to do without you here. None of us thought that it would be so bad.”

“I’m sorry, Jinhyuk,” Changhyun whispered into the phone, “can you please come back? He has to see you.”)

* * *

The sound of Jinhyuk’s knuckles rapping against the door almost seemed to echo.

Both Yein and Changhyun had left the apartment for the sake of their privacy. Changhyun had to pull Yein away to make sure that he wouldn’t rush into the room as soon as Wooseok opened the door—assuming that Wooseok would open the door knowing that it wasn’t only Jinhyuk on the other side. Changhyun ushered Yein out of the apartment with a promise that Jinhyuk was there and he would do his best to sort everything out with Wooseok.

And Changhyun shot his friend an apologetic look over his shoulder when he left with Yein.

Jinhyuk knocked again. He rested his forehead against the door.

“Wooseok?” he called, “It’s me.”

There was a sound on the other side of the door. A shuffling sound.

“Jinhyuk?” Wooseok’s voice was soft. From the way his tongue rolled heavily around the vowels of Jinhyuk’s name, he could tell that Wooseok was drunk. Jinhyuk took a deep breath.

“Please, open the door, Wooseok.”

More shuffling.

And then, there was a soft click on the other side of the door that Jinhyuk was leaning against.

Wooseok appeared from behind the door, eyes sunk and dark with the lack of sleep.

He looked tired.

He looked tired and intoxicated.

He immediately reached for Jinhyuk’s shoulders. He gripped onto him, eyes wide.

 _“Jinhyuk,”_ he whispered.

There was a desperation in the way he whispered his name that sounded as if he couldn’t believe that Jinhyuk was standing in front of him.

Jinhyuk didn’t know what to expect, but he nodded his head when Wooseok called his name. Wooseok’s eyes searched his face for a split second, his eyes flickering quickly. And that was enough for the smaller man to recognize that Jinhyuk really was standing in front of him—the real Jinhyuk, not a figment of his imagination.

Wooseok tugged onto him, pulling him into the room with him.

The door fell shut behind them.

Jinhyuk had been in Wooseok’s room before. He woke him up almost daily when he was still managing him. He had the passcode to Wooseok’s apartment and he let himself in every morning to wake him up. But, Wooseok’s room looked different when there were empty wrappers littered all of the floor and empty bottles of soju in random corners of the room. Jinhyuk’s heart sank at the sight of the room.

_Wooseok was only ever like this when something hurt him deeply._

A thought gnawed at Jinhyuk’s mind, _Was it me?_

“What happened to you, Wooseok?” Jinhyuk asked, quietly.

He was almost afraid of the answer but he let the words fall from his lips, anyway. Wooseok stared up at him with wide eyes. His gaze felt like a stab to Jinhyuk’s gut. The hurt was evident in the way his eyes seemed to have lost the shine that Jinhyuk was so used to seeing.

Slowly, Jinhyuk moved to take a seat on the edge of Wooseok’s bed. Wooseok followed him with his eyes.

He swallowed, “Yein told me that you haven’t left your room in days.”

The singer didn’t respond to the remark. He stared at him, quietly.

“Wooseok?”

Jinhyuk reached for the younger man’s hand, trying to snap him out of his silent stare. They’ve been through this a million times before. Jinhyuk knew how to deal with Wooseok when he was like this. But there was something heavy in the air, unreadable. As soon as their fingers brushed, something flashed in Wooseok’s eyes.

“Why did you leave me?”

It took Jinhyuk completely by surprise. His eyes widened.

And in the blink of an eye, Wooseok was straddling him against the bed.

“What did you expect me to do?” Wooseok breathed. He smelled heavily of alcohol and he was so warm, so close to Jinhyuk’s face. On top of Jinhyuk’s body, Wooseok’s body was burning with the flush from the alcohol but his hands felt cold as they cupped Jinhyuk’s cheeks. Jinhyuk raised his hands to clasp over Wooseok’s hands, an absentminded attempt to warm them. As drunk as he was, Wooseok sounded so desperate when he stared into Jinhyuk’s eyes and whispered, “What was I supposed to do without you?”

Stunned silent, Jinhyuk opened his mouth to speak but he couldn’t find the words to express himself. The spiral of confusion and hurt in Wooseok’s eyes had his heart clenching in his chest, had him regretting every decision he made up until this moment. Jinhyuk felt the regret seeping slowly into his mind—he shouldn’t have made reckless decisions, he shouldn’t have done anything that was capable of breaking a heart. _Wooseok’s heart._

“You didn’t say anything, you didn’t tell me anything,” Wooseok said, tears welling up in his eyes. Jinhyuk’s heart clenched at the sight. He averted his eyes but Wooseok held his face in place, desperately searching for eye contact with Jinhyuk. “You just left without saying anything. You didn’t even text me back.”

“Wooseok, I—…” Jinhyuk started. But, he faltered as soon as he began to speak. His voice drifted off and Wooseok stared at him with desperate eyes. Jinhyuk’s throat felt dry when his eyes met with Wooseok’s again.

Suddenly, he wasn’t sure what his excuse was. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to say.

Of every moment he spent comforting Wooseok, there had never been a moment where he was so obviously the reason behind Wooseok’s reckless drinking.

He never knew he was capable of being the reason that Wooseok looked so broken.

At his sudden silence, a single tear fell from Wooseok’s eye and suddenly, they couldn’t stop. Jinhyuk closed his eyes and held his breath as the singer broke down crying on top of him. The tears that fell against his skin seemed to burn. Jinhyuk moved his hands from where they were placed on top of Wooseok’s to gently cup the singer’s face.

The sinking feeling in his gut was almost suffocating.

It didn’t matter what his excuses were. He made Wooseok cry.

That was the bottom line and he felt terrible for it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry that I left you without saying anything.”

Wooseok hit his chest, a weak whimper leaving his lips. Drunk, Wooseok wasn’t in control of his emotions but Jinhyuk let himself lie beneath the younger man, acting the part of the punching bag for his feelings. He gently placed his hand behind the younger man’s head, pulling him closer to let him sob against his chest.

“Why did you leave me?” Wooseok murmured when he finally calmed his sobs. He gripped into the material of Jinhyuk’s shirt, his eyes ringed red with the remnants of his tears. His voice was hoarse. “Why didn’t you say anything? I wouldn’t have stopped you from leaving… I wouldn’t have held you back.”

There was something deeper than that.

Wooseok wouldn’t be so broken without a deeper explanation. It didn’t make sense for Wooseok to isolate himself for days because his manager quit his job. There wasn’t any kind of relationship that would be so deep. Jinhyuk swallowed the small spark of hope that ignited in the pit of his stomach.

“You wouldn’t have,” Jinhyuk whispered back, “we both know that you wouldn’t have. We’ve been together since you made it big in the whole celebrity world. You wouldn’t have let me go if I told you.”

“That you wanted to quit?” Wooseok asked, “Or that you wanted to leave me?”

Jinhyuk swallowed, “I didn’t want to just leave you, Wooseok.”

“Then, what? What did you want to do?” Wooseok peered up at him, the hurt still swirling in his eyes. His voice was as quiet as ever, coherent despite the slur of alcohol-laced, heavy syllables. “I woke up one morning and you were gone. If you just couldn’t take the job anymore, why didn’t you just tell me? I could have tried to do something about it. But I woke up one morning without you and Yein told me that you quit and you weren’t coming back to me. What is that if it isn’t leaving me? You didn’t say anything at all.”

“I…” Jinhyuk faltered again. He could feel his heart racing in his chest. He bit down on his lower lip, “I… I just couldn’t keep staying by your side harbouring all of these feelings for you in my heart.”

There was silence. _Long and quiet._ Jinhyuk could hear the blood rushing to his ears.

Somehow, admitting aloud that he was a coward made it feel so much more real. It felt more pathetic.

The guilt for making Wooseok cry over something so trivial burned in his gut again.

Wooseok broke the silence.

“Then, why didn’t you just tell me?” Wooseok asked.

If he weren’t so close, Jinhyuk might have missed the fact that he spoke at all. Wooseok’s voice was so soft.

It took a moment for Jinhyuk to register his words.

Jinhyuk stared at him, “What are you talking about?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were in love with me?”

And for the second time in the span of mere moments, Jinhyuk found himself stunned silent. The question felt so reckless, so sudden. He couldn’t wrap his head around how Wooseok could ask something so easily. He was drunk but it wasn’t like Wooseok to ask something so bluntly. Jinhyuk swallowed around the lump of guilt in his throat, unsure of how to respond to the younger man.

Wooseok leaned a little closer.

Jinhyuk felt his breath shorten. He was too close.

“What was running away going to do?” Wooseok whispered. Jinhyuk held his breath, the warmth of Wooseok’s breath against his lips spiking his heart rate. Wooseok’s cheek felt warm under his fingertips. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I couldn’t, Wooseok,” Jinhyuk replied. He sighed, thumb running over the smooth surface of Wooseok’s skin, “You have a future ahead of you. You have all this spotlight on you and I’m no one special. I couldn’t just burden you with all of my feelings… I thought it would be better if I just left and got over all of my feelings by myself.”

Another brief silence.

“You’re stupid.”

Confused and a little miffed, Jinhyuk frowned at the blunt words that fell from Wooseok’s lips all too easily.

“Hey… I’m confessing my feelings to you and you’re calling me stupid?”

“You are. You’re so stupid, Jinhyuk,” Wooseok muttered. He pressed his forehead against Jinhyuk’s and closed his eyes. He cupped his cheeks between his hands again. Jinhyuk could feel the flutter of his lashes against his cheek. He inhaled, “We could have made all this so much easier if you just kissed me. You could have just told me.”

Jinhyuk’s eyes widened, their proximity suddenly feeling like it was too much.

Wooseok was intoxicated but he knew what he was doing. He knew what he was saying, that much was apparent to Jinhyuk when the younger man looked up at him with innocent eyes. The swirl of hurt that existed in them earlier seemed to have faded. He looked more like the Wooseok that Jinhyuk was used to being around—soft and sincere.

He belatedly realized that the stare he was so familiar with was laced with affection.

Wooseok looked at him in the same way that he looked at him, and he never noticed.

Jinhyuk took a breath.

“… You like me.”

Wooseok didn’t miss a beat.

“No shit,” Wooseok murmured, “why else would I ruin myself because you left without saying anything? You broke my heart, Jinhyuk. You left without saying anything and I thought I didn’t mean anything to you.” He laughed, a sound of disbelief, “and then you come back into my arms saying that you ran away because I meant everything to you… you’re a coward and you’re so stupid. I wish that I could hate you for it but I don’t. I don’t hate you for it because you’re so fucking stupid and that’s what’s so charming about you, sometimes.”

Jinhyuk wrapped his arms hesitantly around Wooseok’s waist. “I’m sorry, I was stupid.”

“I’ll forgive you if you kiss me.”

Jinhyuk jumped at the chance for forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/yuseokki) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/jjokkiri) ♡  
> hi there. it's been a while, hasn't it? have this. i'm sorry.


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